This two-day conference, organised by Professor Daniele Caramani, the programme’s director and EUI’s Ernst. B. Haas Chair, aimed to understand how the multiple crises facing the European Union and its member-states have on the one hand created new conflicts and changed existing ones and on the other hand, transformed existing governance structures and introduced new ones.
This year the conference focused on the impact of the Euro crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit, Covid-19, and the war in Ukraine on politics in Europe. Divisions were analysed from a territorial (i.e., European integration) perspective and functional (i.e., comparative politics) perspective.
Daniele Caramani, Lorenzo Cicchi and Ana Petrova discussed the health–economy political divide and presented a structural analysis of sectoral affectedness and Covid-19 policy preferences in Europe. Simon Hix spoke on the ‘Dimensions of differentiation: lessons from Brexit’ whilst Waltraud Schelkle presented a paper co-authored with Hanspeter Kriesi on ‘Exploiting porous boundaries: EU conflict management and crisis containment through externalisation’.
Moreover, Dietlind Stolle presented her recent research on public attitudes on the war in Ukraine: ‘Unity or new division in European politics? How do European publics react to the Russian invasion in Ukraine?’. On attitudes towards Ukrainian and Syrian refugees, Lenka Drazanova presented evidence from survey experiments across eight European countries.
More than 31 academics contributed to discussions over the course of five panels ranging in topics from theories, cleavages, integration, to international borders, and rights. In 2024, the EGPP Annual conference will continue the analysis of the multiple crises affecting Europe, focusing on the governance rather than the politics aspect.
More information about the EGGP can be found on its website.